Posted
by
timothy
on Saturday November 12, 2011 @12:31AM
from the let-god-sort-'em-out dept.

itwbennett writes "In a court case between Hotfile.com and Hollywood studios, Warner Brothers admitted they sent takedown orders for thousands of files they didn't own or control. Using an automated takedown tool provided by Hotfile, Warner Brothers used automated software crawlers based on keywords to generate legal takedown orders. This is akin to not holding the Post Office liable for what people mail, or the phone companies liable for what people say. But the flip side is that hosters must remove files when receiving a legal takedown notice from the copyright holder — even when the copyright holders themselves don't know what material they actually own."

I seem to recall some talk of that kind of stuff before. Apparently they have to in good faith attest that they have the copyrights to those items they send takedown notices for, or else they open themselves up for a lot of potential legal issues. I really have no bloody idea what that would be, but I'm sure suing them by both the ones that received the takedown notice, and the actual owner of the copyrighted material that WB claimed to own, would both be able to sue them.I'm not a laywer, but we've seen t

Yep, buy how using an automated tool gives them the "good faith" cause? If you are willing to go deeper, even the takedown notice would be considered to be taken down, and the judge posted it, liable to a law suit. Ironic, ain't so?

... they have to in good faith attest that they have the copyrights to those items they send takedown notices for....

The global judicial infrastructure is not based on good faith. You can't go into a court say you own a country and be granted legislative priviledges to that without research to affirm your claims. So why should individuals be forced to follow other individuals' claims in good faith? With the same concept spamers would have to just order you to install spyware.That doesn't seem very consistent or legit or even healthy reasoning.

Because it'd be logistically impossible to enforce copyright online to any higher standard than 'that looks a bit dodgy, pull it down.' It's almost impossible to enforce it even with the evidence-free standard of the DMCA.

This is far worse than that. "Warner Brothers used automated software crawlers based on keywords", in this case Warner brothers were attempting to claim copyright on file names not on content. So an egregious criminal act, including fraud, misrepresentation, censorship. The extent of their criminal negligence means they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and then subject to a class action law suit for infringing the constitutional rights of all those whom they wrongfully accused.

Preliminary injunctions are issued under "good faith" statements by the lawyers - essentially it happens because there hasn't been any discovery yet in the issue. It means you actually believe that what you are saying is true. The converse - "bad faith" is liable for a 601 hearing by the bar association - although you basically have to be arrested before they give a damn.

The way the DMCA is written, takedown notices are basically preliminary injunctions against the posting of that item. What I can't understand is how you can in "good faith" say you own copyright on everything with "the box" in it. At this point, I would say that they violated the rules & should be sued for slander of title by the copyright owner and tortuous interfierence by hotfile and the copyright owners.

In my own little perfect world, they would have an injunction issued against them preventing them from issuing another takedown notice for a year or more as punishment for abusing the system.

`(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

See, you're not swearing that the file in question belongs to the copyright holder that you represent. You're only swearing that you allege that the file in question belongs to a copyright holder that you represent. BIG difference.

The only explanation for this kind of language is that it was deliberately written to be unenforceable.

See, you're not swearing that the file in question belongs to the copyright holder that you represent. You're only swearing that you allege that the file in question belongs to a copyright holder that you represent. BIG difference.

Subtly incorrect or not expressed clearly enough. In a DMCA notice you say "we found file X, and file X belongs to the copyright holder, and I am authorized to act in their behalf". If you are not authorized to act, then it is perjury. If file X doesn't belong to the copyright holder, it is perjury. But if the file in question is not file X, but a different file Y, then it is not perjury.

The first part, "a statement that the information in the notification is accurate", would of course be false, but that

you say "we found file X, and file X belongs to the copyright holder, and I am authorized to act in their behalf". If you are not authorized to act, then it is perjury.

Actually, no. If you know you are not authorized to act, that it isn't file X ou that file X belongs to the copyright holder, then it is perjury. That's his point, I believe. If you don't really know for sure that you're right, but you strongly suspect you are, then it's fair game. Remember perjury is only committed if you know for certain that you feeding false information as a lie is only a lie if you know it not to be true. So a mistake (or a "mistake") cannot be called perjury.

So it sounds like someone should start issuing takedown notices against some of Warner's videos. "Sorry, misidentified your trailer as one of mine using an automated tool, but don't worry all you have to do is re-upload or submit a counter-notice."

I'd love to do it myself but I'm not a US citizen. I tried to get a site that violated some of my GPL code taken down using the DMCA but it doesn't work if you don't have a US postal address.

True, and if it was challenged it would fail, but they are taking advantage of the DMCA's extra-legal methods. Since hosts that do not 'quickly' deal with such notices loose their safe harbor provision, they can utilize 3rd party's fear to do things that they could never do through a judge.

I would argue that you cant have 'good faith' when there is no human oversight involved. Thus punching in a bunch of keywords into some automated process and having it generate automated DMCA notices in a 'spray and pray' fashion is tantamount to walking around with a loaded firearm and when it accidentally discharges and kills someone you claim it was an accident (good faith) rather than murder (FRAUDULANT CLAIM)

Telling an untruth under oath isn't perjury, even if proven to be untrue. It must be a lie. Filing these, knowing you are using error prone methods, does not indicate that any one order is likely untrue. They paid someone else to check. They acted in "good faith", even if negligent. Unless you can prove in a court of law that they knowingly lied, I'd expect no court would ever find they weren't acting in good faith.

Thus punching in a bunch of keywords into some automated process and having it generate automated DMCA notices in a 'spray and pray' fashion is tantamount to walking around with a loaded firearm and when it accidentally discharges and kills someone you claim it was an accident (good faith) rather than murder (FRAUDULANT CLAIM)

Wow, if you are seriously presenting that as a legal theory, I'm surprised you could turn a computer on. That's so stupid, it's funny. The courts do realize that killing someone is permanent and much worst than a temporary takedown notice mistakenly issued with no permanent effects at all. If you sued because of this "fraudulent claim" you'd likely be thrown out of court on your first day. You have a recourse listed specifically in the law. Issue a counter-claim and your content goes back up. If you object to having your stuff down for a bit before the counter-claim is active, you would have to prove financial damage prior to the start of the trial, otherwise, the judge could do something like a summary judgement in your favor for $1 (since you didn't indicate any actual loss, why bother with a trial? If you win and win back all damages against you, you'd get $0, so the judge orders them to pay you $1 and you walk away both a fool and a winner). If a DMCA claim is mistakenly filed against you, what's your loss?

And there in lies one of the fundamental flaws in take down notices under the DCMA. They could just as easily have generated the notices from a ouija board or a burning bush. So long as you can't prove they knowing lied the notice is fully valid, and the sender of the notice faces no liability.

Good faith requires that you have reasonable grounds to believe that something is true, or that you have the claim or right, or legal right to do so. That isn't the case here. They're simply doing it because they 'feel' or 'think it might be' something based on assumptions, and guesswork. It would be the same as a cop going along and busting down someone door randomly and saying "I reasonably believed that they were smuggling 250lbs of coke" based on their gut. Doesn't fly there, it shouldn't fly here.

There is a clause in the DMCA for filing claims that are false, perhaps people should start using it?

They have a claim on "Batman Begins" or such, and have been notified by a 3rd party that their copyrighted material of "Batman Begins" was fount at some specified location. They believe it, and have no reason not to. No court would consider a PI stating "I have proof that your material is at this specific location" to be "random" as so many here claim it is. Perhaps I just don't understand "random" By how I see it used here, the sun is "random" in when and how it rises every morning, since it's possible

So the studio owns the words? E.g. "Batman begins Parody", "Review of Batman Begins"? Or even worse for a crawler: "This page contains reviews of the following:" and 90% down the page "Batman begins" linked to a video review of the movie?

The DMCA seems to have an interesting wart, perhaps intended but still: Party A sends take down notice for content of Party B. Now Party B must claim that it has copyright or license to display the content. There are reasonable situations where might lack license or copyrig

They didn't pay the 3rd party to find references to the content. And yes, the studios do own the words, for many things, under trademark. They paid a 3rd party to find their content. The 3rd party did a poor job. The studio didn't "know" that. That's one reason why so much outsourcing is done, legal shielding. I've been setting it up with that as a subtext, but nobody noticed. In today's age, corporations face almost zero liability for anything they do (unless against another corporation), even if ex

Haven't you been listening to the media industry? Each copy they prevent you from distributing equals thousands of dollars.All you have to do is set up a website where people can wire you donations after seeing your product.

You are confusing insane statutory losses intended for professional bootleggers (whether applied to casual non-profit sharing is irrelevant) with *actual* losses, which have to be well documented to claim. Depriving someone of their place of business for a day is easy to determine a loss of, as you just open your books for the last few years and calculate a reasonable interpolation of what that day would have been if you hadn't been deprived of it. But for a "free" video you were sharing on YouTube and ge

No, but filing a DMCA takedown notice not in good faith is perjury according to the DMCA.

Not in good faith includes such things as filing a DMCA takedown notice over the torrent where the only mention of The Box was the fact that one of the comments on the page for the torrent included the word "box." Which Warner Bros. apparently did according to the details of their current lawsuit. So is filing DMCA takedown notices over Open Source software.

But even more important are the issues for the society as whole, going around and accusing people of wrong doing based on automatically generated "proof" by "experts" (at cashing in, not exactly on the relevant technical subject matter), as it happens with DMCA and similar laws, does have a chilling effect on free speech, art (fair use),...

You are deliberately excluding the first two definitions as "not lies" in order to accept the third and least accurate definition. I reject your reality, as it does not match the manner in which the dictionary works, but is a mental masturbation on your part to make you feel better about rejecting the most accurate definitions. Definitions 1 and 2 do not require any knowledge of falsehood. I could just as easily repost you response with #1 highlighted, and I'd be more right than you are, as the order of

Especially since they were repeatedly warned that they were misreporting files and refused to stop and it just so happens they had a financial motive in acting improperly given that the page generated by using the removal tool had links to purchase the alleged infringing work legally--free page views on free advertisements, effectively.

"This is akin to not holding the Post Office liable for what people mail, or the phone companies liable for what people say."

No this is akin to FRAUD. It'd be like me saying I'm Warner Brothers and going and cleaning out their bank accounts.

PS: Maybe if the DMCA included fines and penalties for takedown notices that are illegitimate they might not be as prone to using automated tools that work on a 'spray and pray' philosophy... Also if any of these people were unfairly targeted by DMCA notices should sue Warner Bros for damages and such.

Nope, it's perjury. A DMCA takedown notice is (according to the DMCA itself) issued under penalty of perjury. It may also be fraud, anticompetitive behaviour, and a variety of other things, but issuing a DMCA takedown notice without being sure that it is accurate is perjury. It is not analogous to perjury, the fact that it is perjury is written into the DMCA. It's time someone started prosecuting people who send false takedown notices.

The claim is that you are authorised to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright of the work being distributed. If you are authorised to work on behalf of the owner of copyrighted work A, and you file a takedown notice against work B, then you are not authorised to act on the behalf of the copyright owner.

"Spray and pray" indeed. I received a couple of DMCA takedown notices... and I live in Canada. They don't even know what jurisdiction they're sending these automated notices to. Maybe it is a difficult task to keep tabs on the entire Internet protecting their copyrights. I'd say that the fact that they can't do it reliably means they are going about it in the wrong way.

"Spray and pray" indeed. I received a couple of DMCA takedown notices... and I live in Canada. They don't even know what jurisdiction they're sending these automated notices to. Maybe it is a difficult task to keep tabs on the entire Internet protecting their copyrights. I'd say that the fact that they can't do it reliably means they are going about it in the wrong way.

Uh, "Maybe"?!? Trust me, I'm NOT siding with Warner Brothers here, but that's putting it mildly when speaking of a globally connected network with millions of nodes spread across hundreds (thousands?) of "jurisdiction" points. I agree that someone should retaliate against WB if they were targeted unfairly, but I am also curious as to what alternative WB or anyone else would have that would somehow prove more accurate when on a "seek and destroy" mission across the 'net.

"Juris-my-diction"? Canada is a Berne Convention party too. If your country doesn't have a takedown law, then I'm guessing the notice should be handled like any other cease-and-desist letter: "take down this customer's unauthorized copy of our work or I am likely to sue you as a provider." Does the law of Canada provide for any procedure that gives a legal defense to service providers against contributory or vicarious liability for copyright infringement?

No, but as Bill C-32 has not yet passed, the 2004 Supreme Court decision [cnet.com] is still the prevailing law with regard to P2P file sharing. Sending cease-and-desist letters to law-abiding citizens of another jurisdiction is nothing but legal intimidation.

What I gather from the article is that P2P use is still lawful in Canada because Canada hasn't yet implemented the WIPO treaty. But does the WIPO treaty specify penalties for not transposing it into national statutes in a timely manner? Would countries with tougher copyright laws be justified in imposing trade sanctions on Canada?

This is akin to not holding the Post Office liable for what people mail, or the phone companies liable for what people say.

That "not" shouldn't be there. And it feels like there is something missing from this analogy. Perhaps it would be like "holding the post office responsible to stop mailing privileges for people wrongly accused of mailing fireworks."

The "for what people" phrase is what shouldn't be there. Better analogies would be "This is akin to not holding the Post office liable for what the Postmaster mails, or the phone companies liable for what their spokesman says."

a statement under penalty of perjury that [you have] a good faith belief the material was mistakenly taken down

Fair enough. But check the takedown notice:

a statement that [evil RIAA goon lawyer] has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

a statement that, under penalty of perjury, [evil RIAA goon lawyer] is authorized to act for the copyright holder

That's right -- it's a crime (perjury) to submit a take down notice if (and only if) you're not authorized by the copyright holder. It's not a crime to submit bad-fath take down notices. But disputing a bad-faith take down notice potentially is a crime and exposes you to criminal liability.

That's right -- it's a crime (perjury) to submit a take down notice if (and only if) you're not authorized by the copyright holder.

Right. Now suppose that I create a file with a misleading name, like $SOME_MOVIE_TITLE, and that I own the copyright on its contents (let that be some poem I wrote, or whatever). $EVIL_RIAA authorizes $EVIL_LAWYER to send a DMCA takedown notice. $EVIL_LAWYER is still NOT covered by the DMCA, because though he is authorized by $EVIL_RIAA to act on their behalf for works of whic

By your reading, you only have to be acting on behalf of the owner of some random copyright to be able to send takedown notices on any unrelated topic. For example, I own the copyright on the books that I've published and, more importantly, on this Slashdot post. If I authorise someone to send takedown notices to everyone who infringes the copyright on this post, and they file takedown notices with Hulu against all WB shows, then your reading would be that that is completely legal. I strongly suspect tha

Even if we assume your reading of the law is correct, perjury still applies.

(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

A DMCA submitter is not "authorized to act on behalf of" someone else's copyright, and therefore has issued a false statement "under penalty of perjury".

But it doesn't really matter because everyone involved in the system (eventually) loses their job if they fight the power and moneyed interests, and since they know that, they don't.

I just wrote a song, called "The Box", A sample of the lyrics: "I just rented Netflix and dropped it in the box, never again. I just went to the Redbox, put money in the box, never again. I just went to iTunes, typed my credit card in the box, never again." I just played it on my guitar and recorded it too, uploaded it to my website. I have never licensed this musical performance recording to appear on any other Internet venue, and have not authorized performance rights of the song to any other entity, with

Under the law, this action is refered to as "depraved indifference" - an action, deliberate or unintentional, displaying reckless disregard and wanton carelessness. A suitable penalty would include the removal of the ability to issue takedown notices for a year (or more...).

Under the law, this action is refered to as "depraved indifference" - an action, deliberate or unintentional, displaying reckless disregard and wanton carelessness. A suitable penalty would include the removal of the ability to issue takedown notices for a year (or more...).

Sounds like a fantastic penalty and suitable countermeasure against sue-happy orgs and their "spray and pray" tactics.

Unfortunately, this also appears to be an older law that came from our Justice system. We don't have that anymore here in the US. All we have is a Legal system, where laws go out the window in favor of cronyism and greased palms.

If that's difficult to believe, then tell me how many sue-happy orgs have been forced to "sit out" for an entire "season" of wrongful accusations.

Copyright holders aren't responsible when their bots screw up? Okay, fine, I can buy that. Programs do occasionally make mistakes. I don't get angry at Netflix for occasionally recommending Shindler's List based on my interest in Wall-E. But if content hosters have to pull down content when they receive a notice from a company holding the copyright, then there needs to be a way for the hoster to know if the company holds the copyright.

Media companies engaging in such scattershot tactics should therefore be required to host a database listing every copyright they own. That way if they send a takedown notice for video X to YouTube, someone at YouTube can check the video, check the database, and say "yep, that shouldn't be here" or "nope, this request must have been sent in error."

If they own the copyright but don't list it in their database, then it's their own damn fault if hosters don't pull it. If they don't own the copyright and but do list it in the database, then that can no longer be dismissed as just an error in their bot's algorithm, and they should be open to lawsuits from both sites receiving takedown notices and from the actual copyright holder.

Media companies engaging in such scattershot tactics should therefore be required to host a database listing every copyright they own. That way if they send a takedown notice for video X to YouTube, someone at YouTube can check the video, check the database, and say "yep, that shouldn't be here" or "nope, this request must have been sent in error."

So if the database lists a movie title, YouTube is supposed to know every scene in every movie and know if the content is infringing? Or did you mean to say they have to put up a movie server so YouTube can compare clip against clip? And how exactly would it limit their scattershot practice if YouTube gets all the hard work validating or dismissing everything? The part about "we own this copyright" is right there in the DMCA notice, under penalty of perjury even. The question is if the copyright they have apply to the clip they're trying to take down or not and there's no easy compare function between List<Copyright> and List<VideoClip>. Even if they put up an "original" there's a million kind of settings and clips and compilations and whatnot that don't qualify as fair use, you try to write that fuzzy matching. Quite frankly I'm not sure what you're trying to suggest, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't make any sense.

In addition, the movie studio states that it removed many titles based merely on keywords and without verifying their actual content.

They're not claiming they verified the content at all. But they issued takedown orders based on title keywords that they don't own. You should be at least willing to put up a list of what you claim to own so that minimal verification at least can be done before obeying a takedown order. Takedown orders are legal documents -- it's not something the ISP can

Except that a service provider isn't supposed to make judgments on the legitimacy of the order. If they receive one, they take the content down and it's the responsibility of the person who posted it to issue a DMCA counter-claim. Doing otherwise risks their safe harbor status under the DMCA.

But for your proposal specifically, how is the service provider supposed to verify if a given piece of content is from something owned by the company that issued the takedown notice? The companies are using keyword s

Then the studios are going to have to manually verify things instead of relying on automated tools, at very least by going through the list of candidate matches by hand. With their billion dollar budget total, they can afford to do it if they're that concerned about piracy.

Otherwise they should be slammed in the courts for fraudulently claiming copyright on materials they don't own, and slammed hard. How much time does a citizen normally serve for lying in court? Or laying false charges through the police? Multiply accordingly... and the executives who approved the automatic searches should be the ones doing the time, not some underling.

The companies are using keyword searches because there is too much content to verify manually.

That is simply too bad for them (the copyright holders). Forgive me for not caring about the fact that they might be losing potential profit enough that I would support them randomly issuing takedown orders on things that they don't even hold the copyright to.

But they issued takedown orders based on title keywords that they don't own. You should be at least willing to put up a list of what you claim to own so that minimal verification at least can be done before obeying a takedown order.

But that is already part of a DMCA notice. Like for example:

The movie studio admits this and confirms that while searching for âThe Box (2009)â(TM) many unrelated titles were removed. âoeWarner admits that its records indicate that URLs containing the phrases âThe Box That Changed Britainâ(TM) and âCancer Step Outsider of the Boxâ(TM) were requested for takedown through use of the SRA tool.â

This would come through as a DMCA notice saying we own the copyright to the movie "The Box". We believe the file called "The Box That Changed Britain" is an unauthorized copy of "The Box". Everything you ask for is already available but nobody actually has the time to manually do the verification you ask and a database would do absolutely nothing to change that.

Reality is that the top 100 "users" - or rather feeds represent 75% [slashdot.org] of the posted content, you just have to check new users and if you want you can block them. All the MPAA got is a gigantic game of whack-a-mole trying to delete files at random as they show up in search results, the problem isn't even remotely comparable.

Uh.. there's an even simpler solution.. If the media companies are the ones benefiting from takedown notices properly used... then the media companies need to pony up when they issue takedown notices improperly. It does not matter one goddamn bit to me if the notices are being generated and delivered automagically. Those companies benefit when it works as intended. Thus, they need to bear the costs when it doesn't. If the costs are stupendous because the false positive rate is atrocious, then thems the bre

This is more akin to the phone company not being liable for using automated software to drop all calls that have words that sound like 'bomb'. (Fun Fact: the tech WAS implemented for international calls post-9/11)

It doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere in the article, but does anyone know which "Open Source software" was removed? They claim that the software sped up infringing downloads, so I wondered if it was a file sharing program or download accelerator or something along those lines. This company would happily claim that the entire internet in general is bad because it helps people download infringing content.

Since it is now public knowledge these automated tools are unreliable, simply stop allowing its users to pretend to good faith while using them. Rights holders should not be able to pass the cost of policing their rights on to society by spamming the legal system with invalid notices.

(Not taking into account that "passing the cost of policing their rights on to society" is what they have done for decades.)

Or a preview of life in these United States in two or three years? This is precisely what will happen when those charged with conducting the business of the nation decide instead to legislate moral behavior.

Warner Brothers failed to even attempt due diligence in properly distinguishing real violators from innocent bystanders. Using a blanket keyword search for collecting a site list is tantamount to ripping all the pages out of a phone book between "N" and "U", then pursuing them all with the hopes and intent of nailing a single "John smith".

There is no presumption of guilt, by going after everyone east of "Over There"... They have no legal grounds for their action and as a thank you for a draconian misuse of

Yesterday Warner Bros. responded to Hotfile’s allegations, admitting that it indeed removed materials for which they don’t hold the copyrights. In addition, the movie studio states that it removed many titles based merely on keywords and without verifying their actual content.

Proof that the law is flawed! The law needs to be updated to require that content owners must either: (1) provide proof of the ownership of the content... OR: (2) stipulate agreement to be liable for $1000 per file per calendar day, plus damages and legal fees, for all content they take down that they have no ownership of (or equivalent legal delegated rights). Missing or flawed proof constitutes electing option #2.

Suppose I were to find some stuff Warner Brothers put on the net. I then would take the title, make a work of the same sort with the same title (and far inferior), and register its copyright.

Then, could I hypothetically find real, legit, Warner Brothers stuff out there with the same title, and send my own DMCA takedown requests? I would have a copyrighted work, I could swear without fear of perjury that it's my copyright, and by executing the same degree of care I could send takedown notices to sites h

No, they have two choices: take it down immediately or lose their DMCA safe harbour protection. Without the safe harbour protection, they are liable for any copyright infringement that occurs on their site, so become liable for statutory fines of $7.5K or more per work that is uploaded to YouTube and infringes anyone's copyright. i.e. enough to bankrupt Google. I am not certain what happens if they don't put things back after receiving a counternotice. I would hope that this incurs the same liability.

Sending a takedown notice is using the legal process to have it taken down, so your points 1 and 2 are the same. If the uploader files a counternotice and they put it back, then it has to proceed through the courts and the host is not liable for any infringement (as long as they take it down if the court tells them to).

I am not certain what happens if they don't put things back after receiving a counternotice. I would hope that this incurs the same liability.

In both situations what they gain by following the take-down notice and counter-notice is limitation from liability. In the first case it is limitation from liability for damages claimed by the copyright-holder, as you said. In the second case it is limitation from liability for damages claimed by the person who posted the content. Regardless of whether they act on the counter-notice or not they still have protection from copyright infringement liabilities.

Actually there are sometimes very good reasons for downloading copyrighted material. For example I have downloaded cracked versions of several games that i have bought and paid for, why? because when I switched to a 64 bit OS the fucked up DRM would no longer function and in fact IME can seriously damage the OS because some of the installers will try to jam 32bit hooks into a 64bit kernel and really make a mess. oh and their uninstaller DOES NOT WORK so once its jammed in there you are SOL. I have also found company supplied system requirements and demos are often completely full of shit, as i've bought games where I was WAY below system reqs and the demo played fine but the game simply wouldn't run at all on my system. of course there is no taking it back once opened, so there goes my money right down the shitter.

So until the game companies start removing their DRM after a year or whenever they stop supporting the game, whichever comes first, and I'm allowed to take back products that are defective frankly they can kiss my ass. If they were smart they'd embrace sites like Steam and GOG where my games "just work" but even that they are trying to fuck up by adding DRM on top of Steam, such as the shitastic GFWL bullshit I got stuck with when i bought Bioshock II. The pirate version? No jumping through GFWL constant bullshit just to play the game.

So I have to agree with Gabe from Valve when he said something along the lines of "piracy means you are offering an inferior product". Either your price is too high, the DRM too shitty, or too many hoops just to play (I'm looking at YOU Bioshock II) and you are simply not making your product as useful for the customer as the pirated version.

of course there is no taking it back once opened, so there goes my money right down the shitter

Is this really true? In the UK, you can return it with the original packaging as not suitable for the purpose for which sold, and they are obliged to give you a refund. If they don't, then you can take them to the small claims court as long as you do so within a few (5, I think) years of the purchase.

Is this really true? In the UK, you can return it with the original packaging as not suitable for the purpose for which sold, and they are obliged to give you a refund. If they don't, then you can take them to the small claims court as long as you do so within a few (5, I think) years of the purchase.

I think they would point to the fine print on the box, visible before you opened it, that specified it was for a 32-bit operating system and made no claims about its suitability for a 64-bit OS, and your clai

Uhhh...dude? When my PC is way above system reqs (which BTW if one would support your argument then they would have to accept that THERE ARE NO GAMES FOR 64BIT OS since I have yet to see 64 bit on a single box) there is NO damned reason why it shouldn't 'just work" except for their code being unsuitable for purpose. I have also found their demos to be absolutely worthless as they will bust their ass to make sure the demo code works well while the rest of the game runs like absolute ass. for examples Max Pay